Thursday, January 31, 2013

I got a second nomination
for the Leibster Blog Award. This is from Jamie at I Like Reading Books. Her
blog can be found here: http://willowreadsbooks.blogspot.com/. It is the place
to go to if you are a book lover. Thank you Jamie for nominating me :D

For the details regarding
the Leibster Blog Award just take a peek at a previous post of mine located
here: http://vintagesorrow.blogspot.com/2013/01/leibster-blog-award.html

Here I will be answering the
questions that Jamie has left for me.

1. If you could sum what your blog is about up in
three words, what would they be?

Randomness, books,
imagination

2. What are your favorite
fandoms?

Harry Potter!

3.Top three favorite foods?

Even though eating is not an
activity that I enjoy, I still label myself a junk food lover. So I say pizza,
pasta and candy.

4. Top three favorite
movies?

Equilibrium, Harry Potter
and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Up

5. Top three favorite books?

Harry Potter (the entire
series), The Confession by John Grisham, The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

6. What is your most-visited
website?

www.hexrpg.com

7. What's one weird thing
you can do?

I can sleep for 24 hours,
LOL

8. Rant about one thing for
as long as you can. What bothers you?

What bothers me is people
who complain about school/college/university. They don’t realize that they are
being given this amazing opportunity that is denied to millions and an
opportunity many are fighting for. In my opinion, education is the best thing
that a person can give another person. The best thing that a parent can give
their kid. The best opportunity a human being can be provided with. Because
education sets you up for life. End of rant.

9. What's your favorite
season?

Summer. I don’t care how hot
it is, it just should not be cold.

10. Do you like/dislike
sports? If like, what do you do. If dislike, what do you like?

I would say that I am
neutral towards sports, neither like nor dislike. Used to play some basketball
and did some swimming in high school though. And occasionally I might pay
attention to sports scores. But I remain neutral.

Monday, January 28, 2013

A bit late to make a blog
entry on new year resolutions, eh? Well, I am sure most of you guys (my
readers) must have made some new year resolution or the other, kept working on
it till January 5 at the most, then either gave up on the resolution or
laziness got in the way or you forgot that the resolution or you simply forgot
that the resolution even existed in the first place. This is usually the common
place story with all new year resolutions. Few of them are kept or followed
through. And by the end of January it is as if they never even existed in the
first place.

The whole concept of new
year resolutions have always evaded me. If we want to make certain changes in
our lives, like “I will control my emotions better” or “I will go on a diet and
lose weight” or “I will brush my hair daily” (This one I need to do!) why do we
have to wait for the new year to do it? Why can’t we ever say “I am going to do
it from tomorrow” or “I am going to do it next week”. Or even better,I will do it from today. Why even wait that
long if you want to make some kind of change. Just like the age old saying
goes, “Why put off to tomorrow what can be done today because tomorrow never
comes”. Okay I mashed up two old age sayings there.

Yes I do realize the
positive aspects of new year resolutions. They give you a goal, an aim, a
purpose. Something to look forward to. We all do need something in life. Something
we want to fulfil, something we want to achieve, something we want to see
happen. If life involves just being day in and day out without any purpose, it
becomes, not only dull and monotonous, but it can also be sad and cause
depression for people. New year resolutions can combat those feelings as they
give you a goal. Also, new year resolutions can be a source of motivation. It forces
you to do things that you have been putting off since a long time.

Still, I will be a new year
resolution hater. Why put myself up for failure? Nobody ever fulfils their
resolutions anyways and why would I be any exception? No point putting yourself
up for failure. Statistics do show that like eighty percent of new near
resolutions turn out to be failures and are never kept through.

Science even tells about why
new year resolutions are bad for us. They require so much excessive willpower
that they just make your brain explode. Well, I was reading up on the details
about the science behind at, and even though I find science to be very fascinating,
it is usually beyond me and goes over my head. But apparently what happens is
that the new year resolutions just happen to be so vague because they say stuff
like “I will quit smoking” or “I won’t lose my temper in public” but never
anything about how exactly to go about it. And it is the combination of that vagueness
and the pressure of wanting to achieve the resolution that creates so much
pressure that your brain wants to explode (not literally, of course). But why
risk a literal brain explosion? Stranger things have happened. And what if I happen
to be a medical miracle who becomes the first ever case who experiences a
literal brain explosion? Why risk it! Hence no new year resolutions.

Apart from this, there is
another reason why I have never been a fan of new year resolutions. They always
focus on what is wrong in our lives and how we want to change them. That just
sounds so freaking ungrateful. Yes I know, we all have our problems in life and
each one of us is fighting our own unique battles; even I am fighting my
battle. But don’t you think that new years is a time to be grateful and reflect
on what we have? Like shouldn’t the concept of the Christmas Spirit spill over
to new years also? Like just a few days ago we were saying thanks to God or the
universe or whatever for what we have got and now we are saying that every
single think is wrong with our lives and needs correcting?

And this is the reason why I
never ever have made any new year resolutions in the past and will never make
them in the future either. What is the point? None! So why bother and waste my
time with something so useless as a lame old new year resolution.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Firstly I
would like to thank Stella over at the Jellybean Arson for nominating me for
the Leibster Blog Award. Check out her blog at http://jellybeanarson.blogspot.com/.
It’s a new and upcoming blog.

Basically the
Leibster Blog Award is given to those blogs who have fewer than 200 followers. The
point is to provide those new and upcoming blogs with exposure. Whoever came up
with this award, (Most likely a Mr Leibster or a Ms Leibster, LOL), they came
up with a really good idea.

So this award
has a total of four steps:

1. You thank
the person who nominated you and you provide a link to their blog on your blog

2. Your
nominator has put 11 questions for you to answer. Answer them. Then tell 11
facts about yourself.

3. Leave 11
questions on your blog for the 11 people that you nominated to answer.

4. Pass on
this award to 11 other blogs whom you feel are deserving for this award. Leave a
comment on their blog that you have nominated them.

So I begin
with answering the 11 questions that Stella (http://jellybeanarson.blogspot.com/)
left for me.

1. Why did you start blogging?

Well, honestly speaking, I picked up blogging for the sake of “time pass”,
like they say in my country. I just took up blogging so that I can keep myself
busy and pass the time away somehow. Writing has never been my thing, hehe.

2. If you could live in any book what could it be?

Harry Potter FTW. I wish I could study at Hogwarts *sigh*

3. What's your favorite genre?

Science fiction and Comedy. Can’t choose between the two.

4. What inspires you?

Books inspire me.

5. If you were a superhero what would your name be?

Regal Angel… Lame, I know. But it’s the first thing that came to my mind
after reading the question.

Monday, January 21, 2013

I am back to the world of
blogging and the blogosphere after a long hiatus. Well, I thought I would give
up writing because I simply lost interest in writing. Simple as that. Instead
of making a series of excuses to explain my absence, I’d might as well tell the
truth. Well, what happened was that I got lazy and then in my laziness I lost
interest in writing because my laziness was the reason that I felt that I have
to drag myself to Microsoft Word to type out my posts. Yes, I type my posts in
Microsoft Word. That way if my internet shuts down or anything happens, less
chance of loosing my stuff plus I find it way much easier to type in Microsoft
Word.

So anyways, a series of things
happened, which I will not disclose here, which convinced me that I can manage
to spit out a decent, readable blog post and in me deciding that I must go back
to writing.As I have undertaken this
project, I’d might as well see it to the end as I am not one to just quit on
things without giving them a try first. So for that reason I am back to the
world of blogging with a new layout that I am not a big fan of, LOL.

Saturday, January 05, 2013

Lately I have had a bit of
too much free time on my hands which resulted in me being able to finish a big
thick book quite quickly, Play Dead by Harlan Coben. As usual, I am linking you
to its Goodreads page without hyperlinking as I don’t have the slightest clue
how to do that http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7809428-play-dead and as
usual my review contains spoilers.

In the beginning of this
book, Harlan Coben does give us a warning. That if you haven’t read any book of
his in the past then you should put this down, read another book of his first,
then come back to this one. Well, me, I just ignored the warning and just went
on and reading the book. I have been over some of the reviews people have
written on Goodreads and they do say that his other books are much better than
this one, but like I said, this is my first Harlan Coben read, so I can’t
testify that myself in any way.

This is a book full of
conspiracy and full of cliché. One world class top model gets married to one of
the best basketball players. Something you typically find in supermarket
tabloids, right? Well, so the model, Laura and the basketball player, David,
want to get married but Laura’s mom is so hell bent against it that they run
away to Australia and get married and do their honeymoon there. In Australia,
David vanishes and turns out he is dead by drowning. So far so good.

But after this, I felt like I
was reading the script of some soap opera or cheap Indian drama. I usually like
stuff with conspiracy as that increases suspense and makes stuff more
interesting. But in this case, even though I did enjoy the conspiracy, it
appeared so soap opera-ish.

Just take a look at the way
the conspiracy unfolds. Laura’s mom Mary tells her to stay away from David. Laura
don’t listen. So Mary follows them to Australia and tells David that he and
Laura are brother and sister as Mary had an affair with David’s dad and Laura
is a result of this affair. So David, instead of leaving Laura or ignoring it
or doing something a rational human being would do, David went and got a face
transplant and his voice changed. I mean, seriously? Face transplant? Reminds
me of some Indian drama whose name I can’t remember where they claimed a
character got injured in a car crash and they claimed she got a face transplant
because of the injuries because the actress who played the role changed.

David with the face
transplant and new identity goes back to playing basketball and even though
everyone notices the new guy plays just like David, nobody raises a finger in
suspicion. Anyways, the conspiracy builds up more and more and more and then
the way the entire thing unfolds is actually quite interesting, especially when
the truth behind David’s dad comes into being.

The way the whole conspiracy
unfolds is quite interesting and quite shocking too. When things become much
clear things begin to point either at Mary or at Mary’s sister Judy. I was, at
one point, convinced that its all Judy’s handicraft. I was actually very
shocked and taken aback when I realized who was behind it and how that
individual carried out the conspiracy. Such a dramatic soap opera this turned
out to be when all was revealed at the end.

And the part of David and
Laura being brother and sister? Nothing can resemble a soap opera or a cheap Indian
drama more than that!! Judy tells James, James gets pissed off, drugs Mary,
aborts the baby and then makes Mary pregnant with his kid. And all this time
Mary is under the impression that James knows nothing and that he has fallen
for the web of lies that have been spun around all of the characters in this
book. So they are not brother sister after all!

I know throughout I have
been ranting about the soap opera element of this book and how it resembles a
cheap Indian drama, but please don’t get me wrong here. Despite having its soap
opera/Indian drama element to it, its actually a really awesome book. Yes, the
author does take some time to actually build up the conspiracy. Building up the
conspiracy is quite slow and I personally think the author should have done
that quicker. But once you get tangled in the web of the conspiracy, it really
grips you strongly, and then you just can’t put down the book. You want to keep
on and on reading and see how the conspiracy unfolds because it takes like a
million different twists and turns, many of them unexpected.

One thing in the underlying
tone of the book is the bad side of beauty. Beauty of the human body, to be
specific. And how it can actually destroy and harm other people. Whenever we
think of beauty, we always think of the benefits it gives you. About how it can
help you get ahead, how it can open doors for you, how it can get you favours. And
for those who crave the attention of the opposite gender, beauty can give you
that attention. But the downside of beauty? We ignore that. Harlan Coben has
addressed that wonderfully. I honestly wonder if he intentionally intended to
do this or if it is something that I just happened to pick up on. We learn
about how one sister lost not one, but two, men to her sister because even
though she herself was beautiful, her sister was beautiful-er. We learn, in one
scene, how girls have used their beauty to get an unfair advantage. We learn
about how someone took advantage of another person because the other person was
beautiful. I like the way the author has addressed the bad side of beauty like
this.

At the end of the day,
despite the soap opera element to it (and my personal hatred such soap opera
type clichéd stories) I would still definitely recommend it. Its a book to read
to pass the time. And its quite interesting to see such a conspiracy being spinned
and then unravelled. This requires a lot of talent. Even though from what I have
heard, this is not one of Harlan Coben’s better works, his talent still shines
through this for sure.